The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [3]
Bert reached into a cupboard and took out a Thermos the size of a bucket, and three mugs.
“Oh, you do have electricity, then?” she asked.
“No. A comrade in the next street fills it for me every morning,” he said.
Alice, watching the scene with half her attention, saw how Jasper eyed the flask, and the pouring of the coffee. She knew he was hungry. Because of the row with her mother he had slammed out of the house and not breakfasted. And he had not had time to drink the coffee she had taken up to him. She thought, “But that’s Bert’s supply for the day,” and indicated she only wanted half a cup. Which she was given, exactly as specified.
Jasper drank down his cup at once, and sat looking at the Thermos, wanting more. Bert did not notice.
“The situation has changed,” Bert began, as if this were a continuation of some meeting or other. “My analysis was incorrect, as it happened. I underestimated the political maturity of the cadres. When I put the question to the vote, half decided against, and they left here at once.”
Jasper said, “Then they would have proved unreliable. Good riddance.”
“Precisely.”
“What was the question?” enquired Alice. She used her “meeting voice,” for she had learned that this was necessary if she was to hold her own. To her it sounded false and cold, and she was always embarrassed by it; because of the effort it required, she sounded indifferent, even absent-minded. Yet her eyes were steadily and even severely observing the scene in front of her: Bert looking at her, or, rather, at what she had said; Jasper looking at the Thermos. Suddenly he was unable to stop himself, and he reached for the jug. Bert said “Sorry,” and pushed it towards him.
“You know what the question was,” said Jasper, sour. “I told you. We are going to join the IRA.”
“You mean,” said Alice, “you voted on whether to join the IRA?” She sounded breathless; Bert took it as fear, and he said, with loud, cold contempt, “Shit-scared. They ran like little rabbits.”
Alice persisted, “How was it put to the vote?”
Bert said, after a pause, “That this group should make approaches to the IRA leadership, offering our services as an England-based entity.”
Alice digested this, looking strained because of the effort it cost her to believe it, and said, “But Jasper told me that this house was Communist Centre Union?”
“Correct. This is a CCU squat.”
“But has the leadership of the CCU decided to offer the services of the whole CCU to the IRA? I don’t understand,” she said fiercely, not at all in her “political” voice, and Bert said, curt and offhand, because, as she could see, he was uncomfortable, “No.”
“Then how can a branch of the CCU offer its services?”
Here she observed that Jasper was seeking to engage Bert’s eyes in “Take no notice of her” looks, and she forestalled him. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Bert admitted, “You are correct, in a way. The point was discussed. It was agreed that, while approaches could not be made as a group of the CCU, it would be permissible for a group of CCU members to make the approach, as associated individuals.”
“But …” Alice lost interest. They are at it again, she was thinking. Fudging it. She returned her attention to the rubbish pile a yard beyond the dirty glass. The blackbird had gone. The poor cat was sniffing around the edges of the heap, where flies were crawling.
She said, “What do you do for food here?”
“Take-away.”
“This rubbish is a health hazard. There must be rats.”
“That’s what the police said.”
“Have they been?”
“They were here last night.”
“Oh, I see, that’s why the others left.”
“No,” said Bert. “They left because they got the shits. About the IRA.”
“What did the police say?”
“They gave us four days to leave.”
“Why don’t we go to the Council?” said Alice, in an irritated wail; and as Jasper said, “Oh, there she goes again,” the door opened and a young woman came in. She had short shiny black hair that had been expertly cut, black quick eyes, red lips, a clear white skin. She was glossy and hard, like a fresh cherry. She looked carefully